The Emily Latella Award...

Updated ...goes to Secretary of State Colin Powerless, for his release of "revised" figures for casualties from terrorist attacks in 2003.

The original figures, released in April, claimed a decline in the number of such attacks as well as both deaths and injuries arising from them. The Bushites were quick to claim the numbers proved their "war on terror" was being won. However, the "corrected" data was higher in all three areas than originally claimed; the number of reported deaths was more than double the earlier figure.

What's more, both the number of attacks and the number of wounded were higher in 2003 than in 2002 (208 vs. 198 and 3,646 vs. 1,593, respectively). While the number of deaths declined (from 725 to 625), the total number of casualties (i.e., dead and wounded) went up by 84% (from 2,318 to 4,271). That is, there were more attacks and on average they caused more casualties.

An often-overlooked point here is that the report is called "Patterns of Global Terrorism." A key word there is "global," defined as "international." Incidents that are considered purely domestic are not counted. (Thus, for example, Oklahoma City would not qualify, nor do the murders in Darfur.) This means that the amount of carnage caused by what I would call terrorism - attacks on unarmed innocents for political purposes - far exceeds the very limited scope of this report.

Two other quick thoughts here: If the original figures were supposed to show we're "winning the war on terror," don't the updated figures show we're losing?

And I can't help but note that hunger and malnutrition take the lives of about five million children and an unknown number of adults, year in and year out, largely in silence, their weakened cries falling on the deaf ears of the developed world which regards them only to lecture them on how if they only adopted free market capitalism and mortgaged their national futures to the tender mercies of transnational corporations and the IMF, everything would be fine. Even if we use a more conservative estimate of yearly deaths due to hunger and malnutrition - 2.5 million children - it still means, and that's without denying the pain and fear terrorism has brought but it still means, that last year's rate of "global terrorism" casualties - dead and wounded together - would have to be maintained for 585 years to equal one year's death total due to hunger among the poor children of the world.

And that, again, does not include adults. Nor does it include TB, malaria, water-borne diseases, and other treatable and preventable conditions. Yet we who are spending roughly $160 billion on war in Iraq and Afghanistan are supposed to think ourselves remarkably generous and kind when we offer slightly over 0.1% of that amount to save thousands of lives in Darfur.

What a waste of resources. What a waste of lives. What a waste of blood. What a waste of a people's sense of morality and justice.

Updated to add the link about the IMF.